Now that the sun was up Rex’s resilient spirit reasserted itself. ‘Time enough to worry about tonight when we are through today,’ he declared cheerfully. ‘What we need most just now is a good hot breakfast.’
The Duke smiled. ‘I thoroughly agree, and in any case we can’t stay here much longer. While we eat we’ll discuss the safest place to which we can take Simon.’
‘We can’t take him anywhere at the moment,’ Rex grinned. ‘Not as he is—with only the car rug and your great-coat to cover his birthday suit.’
Simon tittered into his hand. It was the gesture which both his friends knew so well, and which it delighted them to see again. ‘I must look pretty comic as I am,’ he chuckled. ‘And it’s chilly too. One of you had better try and raise me a suit of clothes.’
‘You take the car, Rex,’ said the Duke, ‘and drive into Amesbury. Knock up the first clothes dealer you can find and buy him an outfit. Have you enough money?’
‘Plenty. I was going down to Derby yesterday for the first Spring Race Meeting if this business hadn’t cropped up overnight. So I’d drawn fifty the day before.’
‘Good,’ the Duke nodded. ‘We shan’t move from here until you return.’ Then, as Rex strode away across the grass to the Hispano, which was now visible where they had left it in the car-park, he turned to Simon:
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘while Rex is gone. How did you ever get drawn into this terrible business?’
Simon smiled. ‘Well,’ he said hesitantly, ‘it may seem a odd thing to say, but you are partly responsible yourself.’
‘I!’ exclaimed the Duke. ‘What the deuce to you mean?’
‘I’m not blaming you of course, in the least, but do you remember that long chat we had when we were both down at Cardinals Folly for Christmas? It started by your telling us about the old Alchemists and how they used to make gold out of base metals.’
De Richleau nodded. ‘Yes, and you threw doubt upon my statement that the feat had actually been performed. I cited the case of the scientist Helvetius, I remember, who was bitterly opposed to the pretentions of the Alchemists, but who, when he was visited by one at the Hague in December, 1666, managed to secrete a little of the reddish powder which the man showed him under his finger-nail, and afterwards succeeded in transmuting a small amount of lead into gold with it. But you would not believe me, although I assured you, that no less a person than Spinoza verified the experiment at the time.’
‘That’s right,’ said Simon. ‘Well, I was sceptical but interested, so I took the trouble to check up as far as possible on all you’d said. It was Spinoza’s testimony that impressed me because he was so very sane and unbiased.’
‘So was Helvetius himself for that matter.’
‘I know. Anyhow, I dug up the fact that Povelius, the chief tester of the Dutch Mint, assayed the metal seven times with all the leading goldsmiths at the Hague and they unanimously pronounced it to be pure gold. Of course there was a possibility that Helvetius deceived them by submitting a piece of gold obtained through the ordinary channels, but it hardly seemed likely that he practised deliberate fraud, because he had no motive. He had always declared his disbelief in alchemy and he couldn’t make any more because he hadn’t got the powder, so there was no question of his trying to float a bogus company on the experiment. He couldn’t even claim any scientific kudos from it either because he frankly admitted that he had stolen the powder from the stranger who showed it to him. After that I went into the experiment of Berigord de Pisa and Van Helmont.’
‘And what did you think of those?’ asked the Duke, his lined face showing quick interest in the early morning light.
‘They shook my unbelief a lot. Van Helmont was the greatest chemist of his time, and like Helvetius, he’d always said the idea of transmitting base metals into gold was sheer nonsense until a stranger gave him a little of that mysterious powder with which he, too, performed the experiment successfully; and he again had no personal axe to grind.’
Simon nodded. ‘I know. And if one rejects the sworn evidence of men like Spinoza and Van Helmont, why should one believe the people who say they can measure the distance to the stars, or the scientists of the last century who produced electrical phenomena?’
‘The difference is that the mass mind will not accept scientific truths unless they can be demonstrated freely and harnessed to the public good. Everyone accepts the miracle that sulphur can be converted into fire because they see it happen twenty times a day and we all carry a box of matches in our pockets, but if it had been kept as a jealously guarded secret by a small number of initiates, the public would still regard it as impossible. And that, you see, is precisely the position of the alchemist.
‘He stands apart from the world and is indifferent to it. To succeed in the Great Work he must be absolutely pure, and to such men gold is dross. In most cases he makes only sufficient to supply his modest needs and refuses to pass on his secret to the profane; but that does not necessarily mean that he is a fraud and a liar. The theory that all matter is composed of atoms, molecules and electrons in varying states is generally accepted now. Milk can be made as hard as concrete by the new scientific process, glass into women’s dresses, wood and human flesh decay into a very similar dust, iron turns to rust, and crystals are known to grow although they are a type of stone. Even diamonds can be made synthetically.’
‘Of course,’ Simon agreed, with his old eagerness, so absorbed now in the discussion as to be apparently oblivious of his surroundings. ‘And as far as metals are concerned, they are all composed of sulphur and mercury and can be condensed or materialised by means of a salt.’
‘That is so. But do you mean to tell me that you have been experimenting yourself?’
‘Ner,’ Simon shook his narrow head. ‘I soon found out that to do so would mean a lifetime of æstheticism and then perhaps failure after all. Besides, it’s obvious that transmutation in its higher sense is the supreme mystery of turning Matter into Light. Metals are like men, the baser corresponding to the once born, and both gradually become purified—metals by geological upheavals—men by successive reincarnations, and the part played by the secret agent which hurries lead to gold is the counterpart of esoteric initiation which lifts the spirit towards light.’
‘Was that your aim then?’
‘To some extent. You know how one thing leads to another. I discovered that the whole business is bound up with the Quabalah so, being Jewish, I began to study the esoteric doctrine of my own people.’
De Richleau nodded. ‘And very interesting you found it. I don’t doubt.’
‘Yes, it took a bit of getting into, but after I’d tackled a certain amount of the profane literature to get a grounding, I read the Sepher Ha Zoher, the Sepher Jetyirah and some of the Midraschim. Then I began to see a little daylight.’
‘In fact you began to believe, I expect, like most people who have really read considerably and had a wide experience of life, that our western scientists have only been advancing in one direction and that we have even lost the knowledge of many things with which the wise men of ancient times were well acquainted.’
‘That’s so,’ Simon smiled again. ‘I’ve always been a complete sceptic. But once I began to burrow beneath the surface I found such a mass of evidence that I could no longer doubt the existence of strange hidden forces which can be chained and utilised if one only knows the way.’
‘Yes. And plenty of people still interest themselves in these questions and use the Quabalah to promote their own well-being, and the general good. But where does Mocata come into all this?’
Simon shuddered slightly at the name and drew the car rug more closely about his shoulders. ‘I met him in Paris,’ he said, ‘at the house of a French banker with whom I’ve sometimes done business.’
‘Castelnau!’ exclaimed the Duke. ‘The Man with the Jagged Ear. I knew last night that I had seen that ear somewhere before, but for the life of me I couldn’t recall where.’
Simon nodded quickly. ‘That’s right—Castelnau. Well, I met Mocata at his place, and I don’t quite know how it started, but the conversation drifted round to the Quabalah and, as I had been soaking myself in it at the time, I was naturally interested. He said he had a lot of books upon it and suggested that I might like to visit the house where he was staying and have a look through them. Of course I did. Then he told me that he was conducting an experiment in Magic the following night, and asked if I would care to be present.’
‘I see. That’s how the trouble started.’
‘Yes. The experiment was quite a harmless affair. He made certain ritual conjurations with the four elements of Fire, Air, Water and Earth, then told me to look into a mirror with him. It was an old Venetian piece, a bit spotted at the back but otherwise quite ordinary. As I watched, it clouded over with a sort of mist, then when it cleared again I could no longer see my reflection in it, but a sheet of newspaper instead. It was the financial page of Le Temps giving all the quotations of the Paris Bourse, which sounds pretty prosaic I suppose, but the strange part is that this issue was dated three days ahead.’
De Richleau stroked his lean face with his slender fingers. ‘I saw a similar demonstration in Cairo once,’ he commented gravely. ‘But on that occasion it was the name of the new Commander-in-Chief, who had only been appointed by the War Office in London that afternoon, which appeared in the mirror. You took a note of some of the Bourse quotations I suppose?’
‘Um. The list wasn’t visible for more than ten seconds then the mirror clouded over again and went back to its normal state, but that was quite long enough for me to memorise the stocks I was interested in, and when I checked up afterwards they were right to a fraction.’
‘What happened then?’
‘Mocata offered to instruct me in the attainment of the knowledge and conversation of my Holy Guardian Angel as the first step on the road to obtaining similar powers myself.’
‘My poor Simon!’ The Duke made an unhappy grimace. ‘You are not the first to be trapped by a Brother of the Left Hand Path who is recruiting for the Devil by such a promise. If you had known more of Magic you would have realised that it is proper to pass through the six stages of Probationer, Neophyte, Zelator, Practicus, Philosophus and Dominus Liminis before, as an Adeptus Inferior after many years of study and experience, you would be qualified to take the risk of attempting to pass the Abyss. Besides, there are no precise rules for attaining the knowledge and conversation of one’s Holy Guardian Angel. It is a thing which each man must work out for himself and no other can help one to it. Mocata invoked your Evil Angel, of course, to act a blasphemous impersonation while your Holy Guardian wept impotent tears to see the terrible danger into which you were being drawn.’
‘I suppose so, although, of course, I couldn’t know that at the time. Anyhow, I had to go back to London a few days later, and I was so impressed by that time that I asked Mocata to let me know directly he arrived, because he spoke of coming over. He turned up a fortnight later and rang me up at once to urge me to unload a lot of stock that he knew I was carrying. I had faith in it myself but in view of what I’d seen in his mirror I took his tip and saved myself quite a packet, because the market broke almost immediately after.’
‘Was that when you asked him to go and live with you?’ inquired the Duke.
‘Yes. I suggested that he should stay with me while he was in London because he had no suitable place in which to practise his evocations at his hotel. He moved over to St John’s Wood then and after that we used to sit up together in the observatory pretty well every night. That’s why I saw so little of you during that time. But the results were extraordinary—utterly amazing.’
‘He gave you more information which governed your financial transactions, I suppose.’
‘Yes, but more than that. He foretold the whole of the Stravinsky scandal. I’m not a poor man as you know, but if I hadn’t been forewarned about that, it would have darn nearly broken me. As it was, I cleared every single share in the dud companies before the storm broke and got out with an immense profit.’
‘By that time you had begun to dabble in Black Magic, I imagine?’
Simon’s dark eyes flickered away from the Duke’s for a moment, then he nodded. ‘Just a bit. He asked me to recite the Lord’s Prayer backwards one night, and I was a bit unhappy about it but… well, I did. He said that since I wasn’t a Christian anyhow no harm could come to me from it.’
‘It is horribly potent all the same,’ the Duke commented.
‘Perhaps,’ agreed Simon miserably. ‘But Mocata is so devilishly glib and, according to him, there is no such thing as Black Magic anyhow. The harnessing of supernatural powers to one’s will is just Magic, neither black nor white, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘Tell me about this man.’
‘Oh, he’s about fifty, I suppose, bald-headed, with curious light blue eyes and a paunch that would rival Dom Gorenflot’s.’
‘I know,’ agreed the Duke impatiently. ‘I’ve seen him. But I meant his personality, not his appearance.’
‘Of course, I forgot,’ Simon apologised. ‘You know for weeks now I hardly know what I’ve been doing. It’s almost as though I had been dreaming the whole time. But about Mocata: he possesses extraordinary force of character, and he can be the most charming person when he likes. He’s clever of course, amazingly so, and seems to have read pretty well every book that one can think of. It’s extraordinary, too, what a fascination he can exercise over women. I know half a dozen who are simply bats about him.’
‘What can you tell me of his history?’
‘Not much, I’m afraid. His Christian name is Damien and he is a Frenchman by nationality, but his mother was Irish. He was educated for the Church. In fact, he actually took Orders but, finding the life of a priest did not suit him, he chucked it in.’
De Richleau nodded. ‘I thought as much. Only an ordained priest can practise the Black Mass, and since he is so powerful an adept of the Left Hand Path, it was pretty certain that he was a renegade priest of the Roman Church. But what more can you tell me? Every scrap of information which you have may help us in our fight, because you must remember, Simon, that you have only achieved a very temporary security. The battle will begin again when he exercises his dominance over you to call you back.’
Simon shifted his position on the stones and then replied thoughtfully. ‘He does the most lovely needlework, petit point and that sort of thing you know, and he’s terribly fastidious about keeping his plump little hands scrupulously clean. As a companion he is delightful to be with except that he will smother himself in expensive perfumes and is as greedy as a schoolboy about sweets. He had huge boxes of fondants, crystallised fruits, and marzipan sent over from Paris twice a week when he was at St John’s Wood.
‘Ordinarily he was perfectly normal and his manners were charming, but now and again he used to get irritable fits. They came on about once a month and after he had been boiling up for twenty-four hours, he used to clear out for a couple of days and nights. I don’t know where he used to go to at those times, but I ran into him one morning early, when he had just returned from one of these bouts, and he was in a shocking state: filthy dirty, a two days’ growth of beard on his chin, his clothes all torn and absolutely stinking of drink. It looked to me as if he hadn’t been to bed at all the whole time but had been wallowing in every sort of debauchery down in the slums of the East End.
‘He is quite an exceptional hypnotist, of course, and keeps himself in touch with what is going on in Paris, Berlin, New York and a dozen other places by throwing various women, who used to come and visit him regularly, into a trance. One of them was a girl called Tanith, a perfectly lovely creature. You may have seen her at the party, and he says she is by far the best medium he’s ever had. He can use her almost like a telephone and plug in right away to whatever he wants to know about. Whereas with the others there are very often hitches and delays.’
‘You let him hypnotise you, too, of course?’
‘Yes, in order to get these financial results.’
‘I thought as much,’ De Richleau nodded, ‘And after you had allowed him to do it willingly for some little time he was able to block out your own mentality entirely and govern your every thought. That’s why you’ve failed to realise what’s been going on. It is just as though he’d been keeping you drugged the whole time.’
‘Um,’ Simon agreed miserably. ‘It makes me positively sick to think of it, but I suppose he has been gradually preparing me for this Ritual to Saturn which he meant to perform two nights ago and …’ He broke off suddenly as Rex appeared between two of the great monoliths.
Grinning from ear to ear, Rex displayed his purchases for their inspection. A pair of grey flannel shorts, a khaki shirt, black and white check worsted stockings, a gaudy tie of revolting magenta hue, a pair of waders, a cricket cap quartered in alternate triangular sections of orange and mauve, and a short, dark blue bicyclist’s cape.
‘Only things I could get,’ he volunteered cheerfully. ‘The people who run the local Co-op don’t live on the premises, so I had to knock up a sports outfitter.’
De Richleau sat back and roared with laughter while Simon fingered the bizarre assortment of garments doubtfully. ‘You’re joking Rex,’ he protested with a sheepish grin. ‘I can’t return to London in this get-up.’
‘We’re not going to London,’ the Duke announced. ‘But to Cardinals Folly.’
‘What, to Marie Lou’s?’ Rex looked at him sharply. ‘How did you come to get that idea …’
‘Something that Simon said just after you left us.’
Simon shook his head jerkily. ‘I don’t like it—not a little bit. I’d never forgive myself if I brought danger into their home.’
‘You will do as you’re told my friend,’ De Richleau’s voice brooked no further argument. ‘Richard and Marie Lou are the most mentally healthy couple that I know. The atmosphere of their sane and happy household will be the very best protection we could find for you and all of us are certain of a warm welcome. No harm will come to them if we exercise reasonable precautions, and the help of their right-thinking minds will give us the extra strength we need. Besides, they are about the only people to whom we can explain the whole situation without being taken for madmen. Now hurry up and array yourself like the champion of next year’s Olympic games.’
With a shrug of his narrow shoulders Simon disappeared behind the stones while Rex added: ‘That’s right. I ordered ham and eggs to be got ready at the local inn and I’m mighty anxious to start in on them.’
‘Eggs and fruit,’ cut in the Duke, ‘but no ham for any of us. It is essential that we should avoid meat for the moment. If we are to retain our Astral strength our physical bodies must undergo a semi-fast at least.’
Rex groaned. ‘Why, oh, why dear Simon, did you ever go hunting Talisman and let your friends in for this? When I went to Russia after the Shulimoff jewels and you came to get me out of trouble, at least it didn’t prevent your feeding decently when you had the chance.’
‘That reminds me,’ De Richleau threw over his shoulder in the direction where Simon was struggling into his comical garments. ‘What is this Talisman? Rex mentioned it last night.’
‘It’s the reason why Mocata is certain to make every effort to get possession of me again,’ Simon’s voice came back. ‘It is buried somewhere, and adepts of the Left Hand Path have been seeking it for centuries. It conveys almost limitless powers upon its possessor and Mocata has discovered that its whereabouts will be revealed if he can practise the ritual to Saturn in conjunction with Mars with someone who was born in a certain year at the hour of the conjunction. There can’t be many such, but for my sins I happen to be one, and even if he can find others they might not be suitable for various reasons.’
‘Yes, I realise that. But what is the Talisman?’
‘I don’t really know. Except for conducting my business on the lines suggested by Mocata, I don’t think my brain has been functioning at all in the last two months. But it’s called the Talisman of Set.’
‘What!’ The Duke sprang to his feet as Simon appeared grotesquely attired in his incongruous new clothes, his long knees protruding beneath the shorts, the absurd cricket cap set at a rakish angle on his head, and the cycling cloak flapping about his shoulders.
Rex dissolved into tears of laughter, but the Duke’s grim face quickly sobered his mirth.
‘The Talisman of Set,’ De Richleau repeated almost in a whisper.
‘Yes, it has something to do with four horsemen I think, but what on earth’s the matter?’ Simon’s big mouth fell open in dismay at the sight of the Duke’s horror-stricken eyes.
‘It has indeed! The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,’ De Richleau grated out. ‘War, Plague, Famine and Death. We all know what happened the last time those four terrible entities were unleashed to cloud the brains of statesmen and rulers.’
‘You’re referring to the Great War I take it.’ Rex said soberly.
‘Of course, and every adept knows that it started because one of the most terrible Satanists who ever lived found one of the secret gateways through which to release the four horsemen.’
‘I thought the Germans got a bit above themselves,’ Rex hazarded, ‘although it seems that lots of other folks were pretty well as much to blame.’
‘You fool!’ De Richleau suddenly swung upon him. ‘Germany did not make the War. It came out of Russia. It was Russia who instigated the murder at Sarajevo, Russia who backed Serbia to resist Austria’s demands, Russia who mobilised first and Russia who invaded Germany. The monk Rasputin was the evil genius behind it all. He was the greatest Black Magician that the world has known for centuries. It was he who found one of the gateways through which to let forth the four horsemen that they might wallow in blood and destruction, and I know the Talisman of Set to be another. Europe is ripe now for any trouble and if they are loosened again, it will be final Armageddon. This is no longer a personal matter of protecting Simon. We’ve got to kill Mocata before he can secure the Talisman and prevent his plunging the world into another war.’